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<div id="1" name="1">
<p><b>E. coli outbreak: First German sprout tests negative</b></p>
<p>The first tests on bean sprouts from a northern German farm suspected of being the source of an E. coli outbreak are negative, officials say.</p>
<p>Of 40 samples from the farm being examined, officials said 23 tested negative. Further tests are pending.</p>
<p>They said finding the outbreak's cause may prove difficult, because weeks have passed since it began.</p>
<p>The farm in Uelzen south of Hamburg was named on Sunday as the probable source of the bug that has killed 22 people.</p>
<p>Initially, German officials had pointed to Spanish cucumbers as the likely cause.</p>
<p>More than 2,200 people have fallen ill in at least 12 countries, though cases outside Germany have been linked to travel there.</p>
<p>"Investigations are continuing," Lower Saxony's agriculture ministry said on Monday as it announced that the first tests had proved negative.</p>
<p>It added that it did not expect "any short-term conclusions", and that given the complex testing procedure, the remaining 17 samples may not be returned for a few more days.</p>
<p>The organic farm in Uelzen is about 100km (62m) south of Hamburg, the epicentre of the outbreak.</p>
<p>It produces bean sprouts including adzuki, alfalfa, broccoli, peas, lentils and mung beans, all grown in a nursery for consumption in salads.</p>
<p>The farm's general manager, Klaus Verbeck, was quoted by the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper as saying that he could not see how it was to blame.</p>
<p>"I can't understand how the processes we have here and the accusations could possibly fit together," said Mr Verbeck.</p>
<p>"The salad sprouts are grown only from seeds and water, and they aren't fertilised at all. There aren't any animal fertilisers used in other areas on the farm either."</p>
<p>The strain of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) involved in the outbreak is normally transmitted through faeces or faecal bacteria.</p>
<p>Spanish seek damages</p>
<p>Scientists say it is an aggressive hybrid strain toxic to humans and not previously linked to food poisoning.</p>
<p>Hundreds of those affected by the bacterium have developed haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can be fatal.</p>
<p>EU agriculture ministers are to hold an emergency meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, where they are expected to discuss the outbreak and how the EU can respond to its economic impact.</p>
<p>They are also expected to address a Russian ban on imports of fresh produce from the EU, introduced in response to the outbreak.</p>
<p>Spain has made it clear it will seek damages after Spanish produce was linked to the outbreak.</p>
<p>Spain's fruit and vegetables exporters association has estimated losses at 225m euros (&pound;200m) a week.</p>
</div>
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<div id="2" name="2">
<h1>Apple boss Steve Jobs shows off iCloud service</h1>
<p class="introduction">Apple has unveiled its much-anticipated iCloud service at its annual developers' conference.</p>
<p>Apple boss Steve Jobs returned from medical leave to show off the features of the web-based service.</p>
<p>He said iCloud was necessary because the PC was no longer the digital hub of users' digital lives.</p>
<p>The web-based service aims to synchronise and co-ordinate the key content people store and share across their devices.</p>
<p>Anyone buying an app, book or music track for one device will see it replicated on the other Apple devices they own. Similarly, bookmarks for interesting web pages will be shared across all gadgets.</p>
<p>Mr Jobs stressed that iCloud was "not just a hard disk in the sky".</p>
<p>This would end the current frustration of keeping content such as photos and songs synchronised.</p>
<p>One key element of iCloud was Apple's music store iTunes, he said. This now has a iCloud element so music bought on one device can be propagated across all the Apple gadgets that person owns.</p>
<p>One part of the cloud-version of iTunes, called iTunes Match, will also scan the songs that people have ripped from their own CDs. This will recreate the library in the cloud without the need for the music to be uploaded. The service will cost $24.99 a year in the US. UK prices have yet to be given.</p>
<p>The release of iTunes Cloud pits Apple against Google and Amazon which have both unveiled their own web-based music storage services. However, both those lack the involvement of record labels and the ability to replicate an existing library.</p>
<p>Apple also talked about updates for the iOS operating system that runs on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. It said it had sold more than 200 million iOS devices.</p>
<p>One novel feature integrates micro-blogging service Twitter into camera and photo apps to make it easier for people to share snaps with followers. iOS5 also introduces a auto-focus feature that lets a user zoom in on a particular.</p>
<p>Apple said it also planned to introduce a system that will update iOS devices without the need to plug them in to a PC or Mac. The new version of iOS will be available in the Autumn.</p>
<p>Lion, the forthcoming update for the Apple Mac operating system was also demonstrated at the WWDC. Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller said the software had more than 250 new features.</p>
<p>One key update, he said, was the inclusion of multi-touch keypads so Apple's notebooks can handle gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and momentum based scrolling seen before now on the iPhone.</p>
<p>Another gesture will take users to Ground Control, a global overview of everything happening on a notebook. Lion also has an autosave feature that automatically keeps copies of documents and other files.</p>
<p>Also introduced was a peer-to-peer wi-fi feature called Air Drop that lets Mac owners share files with friends and colleagues by dragging and dropping an icon onto a picture.</p>
<p>Apple said Lion will no longer be available on a physical CD, instead the software will have to be downloaded. Apple also cut the price of the update from more than $100 to $29 (&pound;20.99 in the UK) when it goes on sale in July.</p>
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<div id="3" name="3">
<h1>Syria police 'killed in clashes' in Jisr al-Shughour</h1>
<p class="introduction">Some 120 members of the Syrian security forces have been killed in clashes in the north-western town of Jisr al-Shughour, state media report.</p>
<p>Initial reports said 20 police were killed in an ambush by "armed gangs". But officials later said dozens more had died in other incidents, including 82 in an attack on their headquarters.</p>
<p>If confirmed, it would be the deadliest day for the security forces since anti-government protests began in mid-March.</p>
<p>A witness has cast doubt on the claims.</p>
<p>Foreign media are greatly restricted in Syria and these reports have not been independently verified.</p>
<p>The state media reports came a day after human rights activists said at least 35 people, including police, had been killed in Jisr al-Shughour, close to the Turkish border.</p>
<p>Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim Shaar said the government would respond "strongly and decisively" to Monday's reported attacks.</p>
<p>State TV said hundreds of armed gunmen had taken over parts of Jisr al-Shughour, about 20km (12 miles) from the Turkish border, attacking government buildings and setting them on fire.</p>
<p>It said gangs using light weapons, grenades and stolen explosives ambushed police as they approached the town early on Monday, killing 20 officers.</p>
<p>The police convoy had been "on their way to rescue citizens being terrorised" by the gangs in Jisr al-Shughour, said the report.</p>
<p>Another 37 security officials were killed in an attack on the town's security centre and eight in a bomb attack on a post office, while the bloodiest incident occurred when gunmen took over the security services' headquarters, it added.</p>
<p>"The armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour carried out a genuine massacre and mutilated some of the bodies," said the TV report.</p>
<p>The official Sana news agency quoted a correspondent as saying reinforcements had been sent to Jisr al-Shughour and that security forces personnel were surrounding houses from which armed men were firing weapons.</p>
<p>He added that the gunmen were using civilians as human shields, and that some of their victims' bodies had been thrown in the Orontes river.</p>
<p>A witness told BBC Arabic that the protesters did not have weapons.</p>
<p>"We don't have any kind of weapons," he said. "The soldiers were coming our way, then they were shot in the back by some Syrian security elements."</p>
<p>Human rights activist Mustafa Osso also told the Associated Press he doubted the claims by officials, saying the protesters had so far been peaceful and unarmed.</p>
<p>The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says if official reports are correct, it would be the first time officials have admitted to such a large loss of personnel.</p>
<p>Our correspondent says there has been an unusual lack of information about the clashes on opposition websites and Facebook pages.</p>
<p>One protest site said Jisr al-Shughour had been surrounded and there were suggestions some members of the security forces had switched sides.</p>
<p>The unrest began in the southern city of Deraa before spreading.</p>
<p>Activists say more than 1,100 people have been killed in the unrest.</p>
</div>
<hr/>
<div id="4" name="4">
<h1><b>EU ministers to meet on E.coli outbreak </b></h1>
<p>Officials expected to provisionally agree on compensation package for farmers hit by sales losses.</p>
<p>European Union agriculture ministers are expected to reach a provisional agreement on how to compensate farmers hit by the E.coli outbreak.<br /> <br /> Ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, which has left 22 people dead, more than 2,000 ill and crippled exports in the region.<br /> <br /> Farmers are reported to have lost millions in exports over the outbreak, with Fepex, Spain's fruit and vegetable industry group, saying $256m had been lost in exports amongst its growers.<br /> <br /> German, Dutch, Belgian and Portuguese producers have also been affected.<br /> <br /> The European Commission said the structure and specific amounts of aid being discussed on Tuesday had not yet been decided.<br /> <br /> "I'm not sure that we will actually have a legal proposal on the table [on Tuesday] ... I think our hope is that we can reach an agreement in principle," Roger Waite, the Commission's agriculture spokesman, told a press briefing in Brussels.</p>
<p>The ministers will also be reviewing the EU's food safety alert system, in order to ensure that public warnings have "scientific basis and proof", John Dalli, the EU health commissioner, said.</p>
<p>Scientists and health authorities have been struggling to determine the source of the outbreak, with the most recent theory that the harmful bacteria came from organic bean sprouts.</p>
<p>German scientists said that while they found no traces of E.coli at an organic vegetable farm that was believed to be the source, the test did not disprove their theory. They said the contaminated produce could have long since been distributed.</p>
<p>"This is an important lead that we're vigorously pursuing," Ilse Aigner, Germany's federal agriculture minister, said in Berlin on Monday, after 23 samples tested at the farm had come out negative.</p>
<p>She repeated warnings to consumers to avoid eating bean sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes and salad.</p>
<p>Scientists say the contamination may have come from the seeds in the beans, the water used to grow the sprouts or even from a worker who was in contact with them.</p>
<p>"Bean sprouts are not an uncommon cause of food poisoning," Paul Wigley, from the University of Liverpool's School of Veterinary Science, told the Reuters news agency.</p>
<p>"Both E.coli and Salmonella outbreaks have been linked to sprouts in the United States and in Britain," Wigley said, adding that the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the US department of agriculture have long since been concerned regarding risks involving bean sprout production.</p>
<p>Andreas Hensel, the head of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, has admitted that "it is possible we shall never be able to identify the source" of the contamination, however.</p>
</div>
<hr/>
<div id="5" name="5">
<p><b>Obama </b><b>holds big 2012 lead over Republicans</b><br /> By John Whitesides &ndash; Wed Jun 8, 1:58 pm ET<br /> <br /> WASHINGTON (Reuters) &ndash; President Barack Obama retains a big lead over possible Republican rivals in the 2012 election despite anxiety about the economy and the country's future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday.<br /> <br /> Obama's approval rating inched up 1 percentage point from May to 50 percent but the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track also rose as pricier gasoline, persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market chipped away at public confidence.<br /> <br /> Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins, the poll showed. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points -- 51 percent to 38 percent.<br /> <br /> Obama, who got a boost in the polls last month with the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is amassing an election campaign warchest likely to be larger than the record $750 million he raised in 2008.<br /> <br /> Sarah Palin and Romney lead the Republicans battling for the right to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election. Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, had the support of 22 percent of the Republicans surveyed. The former governor of Alaska has not said whether she will run for president next year.<br /> <br /> Romney, who failed in a 2008 presidential bid, had 20 percent support. Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas , and former pizza executive Herman Cain were tied for third with 7 percent each. The Republican candidates are just starting to engage in their slow-starting nomination race. Young said Palin and Romney had a clear advantage at this stage over other challengers in name recognition among voters. Other surveys have shown Romney in a stronger position. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this week gave Romney a slight lead over Obama among registered voters. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney's 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points.<br /> <br /> The survey was taken after weak jobs and housing figures released last week showed the U.S. economy is recovering slower than expected. Unemployment rose slightly to 9.1 percent for the month. The poll found 60 percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track, up from 56 percent in May but still below April's high of 69 percent. In the latest survey, 35 percent said the country is going in the right direction. Obama's approval rating has drifted in a narrow range between 49 percent and 51 percent since January, with the exception of April when the first spike in gasoline prices drove his rating lower. With Congress battling over a Republican budget plan that includes scaling back the federal Medicare health program for the elderly, the poll found a plurality of Americans, 43 percent, oppose the Medicare cuts and 37 percent support them. The poll, conducted Friday through Monday, surveyed 1,132 adults nationwide by telephone, including 948 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.<br /> <br /> (Editing by John O'Callaghan )</p>
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<div id="6" name="6">
<h1>Computer Studies Made Cool, on Film and Now on Campus</h1>
<h6>By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/claire_cain_miller/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by <span class='automatic' about='http://www.businessinsider.com/author/claire-cain-miller' typeof='rnews:Person'>Claire Cain Miller</span>">CLAIRE CAIN MILLER</a></h6>
<p>NEW HAVEN &mdash; When Keila Fong arrived at Yale, she had never given much thought to computer science. But then last year everyone on campus started talking about the film &ldquo;The Social Network,&rdquo; and she began to imagine herself building something and starting a business that maybe, just maybe, could become the next Facebook.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s become very glamorous to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, and everyone likes to think they have some great idea,&rdquo; said Ms. Fong, a junior, who has since decided to major in Yale&rsquo;s newly energized computer science program.</p>
<p>Never mind that Mr. Zuckerberg, like other tech titans, did not major in computer science &mdash; or even finish college. Enrollment in computer science programs, and degrees from them, are rising after a decade of decreases, despite much handwringing about the decline of American competitiveness in technology and innovation from President Obama on down. And educators and technologists say the inspiration is partly Hollywood&rsquo;s portrayal of the tech world, as well as celebrity entrepreneurs like Steven P. Jobs of Apple and Mr. Zuckerberg who make products that students use every day.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a national call, a Sputnik moment,&rdquo; said Mehran Sahami, associate chairman for computer science education at Stanford, referring to the Soviet satellite launching in 1957 that pushed the United States into the space race. &ldquo;Students are users of Facebook or Google, and they think about how the people who created it are not that much different than themselves. The realization that I can do this too is a powerful motivator.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The number of computer science degrees awarded in the United States began rising in 2010, and will reach 11,000 this year, after plummeting each year since the end of the dot-com bubble in 2004, according to the Computing Research Association, which tracks enrollment and degrees. Enrollment in the major peaked around 2000, with the most degrees &mdash; 21,000 &mdash; awarded four years later. The number of students who are pursuing the degree but have not yet declared their major increased by 50 percent last year.</p>
<p>To capitalize on the growing cachet of the tech industry, colleges nationwide, including Stanford, the University of Washington and the University of Southern California, have recently revamped their computer science curriculums to attract <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/iphone/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival news about the iPhone.">iPhone</a> and Facebook-obsessed students, and to banish the perception of the computer scientist as a geek typing code in a basement.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</div>
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<div id="7" name="7">
<h1>Ethnic Protests in China Have Lengthy Roots</h1>
<h6>By <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/andrew_jacobs/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Andrew Jacobs">ANDREW JACOBS</a></h6>
<p>DAMAO BANNER, China &mdash; The Mongol nomads who have ranged across these blustery grasslands for millenniums have long had a tempestuous relationship with their Han Chinese neighbors to the south. Genghis Khan&rsquo;s horseback conquerors overran Beijing in 1215, and Qing dynasty armies returned the favor four centuries later.</p>
<p>By the time Mao&rsquo;s Communist rebels declared victory in 1949, the Mongolians who occupied what became the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about China.">China</a> had been by and large pacified through Han <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about immigration.">immigration</a>, intermarriage and old-fashioned repression.</p>
<p>But the ethnic Mongolian protests that have swept a number of cities in recent weeks are a sobering reminder that government largess, assimilation or an iron fist cannot entirely extinguish the yearnings of some of China&rsquo;s 55 ethnic minorities, who account for 8 percent of the country&rsquo;s population.</p>
<p>Even as an exemption from the nation&rsquo;s one-child policy granted to minorities helped expand their numbers, Mongolians are still outnumbered by Han five to one in Inner Mongolia, a region twice the size of California that borders the independent nation of Mongolia.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We feel like we are being drowned by the Han,&rdquo; said a 21-year-old computer science student, speaking through the fence of Hohhot Nationality University, where he and thousands of other Mongolian students were penned up for five days last week to prevent them from taking to the streets. &ldquo;The government always talks about ethnic harmony, but why do we feel so oppressed?&rdquo;</p>
<p>In Xilinhot, a mining hub not far from where the herder was killed as he and others tried to block a convoy of coal trucks, as many as 2,000 people, many of them students, took to the streets on May 26. Five days later, about 150 protesters marched through the center of Hohhot, the regional capital, despite the presence of thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police officers who kept college students confined to their campuses.</p>
<p>The government response has hewed closely to the recipe used to quell the far more violent ethnic turmoil that convulsed Tibet in 2008 and the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang a year later. Internet access has been severely restricted, with most Mongolian Web sites shut down, and scores of students, professors and herders have been taken into custody. Enhebatu Togochog, an exiled human rights advocate, has described the crackdown as a &ldquo;witch hunt.&rdquo;</p>
</div>
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<div id="8" name="8">
<p><b>Talking Truth to NATO</b><br /><br />Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke bluntly to America&rsquo;s NATO allies on Friday. They needed to hear it.<br /><br />America&rsquo;s key strategic alliance throughout the cold war is in far deeper trouble than most members admit. The Atlantic allies face a host of new and old dangers. Without more and wiser European military spending &mdash; on equipment, training, surveillance and reconnaissance &mdash; NATO faces, as Mr. Gates rightly warned, &ldquo;a dim if not dismal future&rdquo; and even &ldquo;irrelevance.&rdquo;<br /><br />The secretary is retiring at the end of this month, which is likely one of the reasons he jettisoned the diplomatic niceties. But not the only one. As he made clear, this country can no longer afford to do a disproportionate share of NATO&rsquo;s fighting and pay a disproportionate share of its bills while Europe slashes its defense budgets and free-rides on the collective security benefits.<br /><br />NATO&rsquo;s shockingly wobbly performance over Libya, after the Pentagon handed off leadership, should leave no doubt about the Europeans&rsquo; weaknesses. And while America&rsquo;s NATO partners now have 40,000 troops in Afghanistan (compared with about 99,000 from the United States), many have been hemmed in by restrictive rules of engagement and shortages of critical equipment. Too many are scheduled for imminent departure.<br /><br />The free-rider problem is an old one but has gotten even worse over the last two decades. During most of the cold war, the United States accounted for 50 percent of total NATO military spending; today it accounts for 75 percent. Mr. Gates was right when he warned of America&rsquo;s dwindling patience with allies &ldquo;unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.&rdquo;<br /><br />Decades of underinvestment, poor spending choices and complacent denial about new challenges have created what Mr. Gates called a &ldquo;two-tiered alliance.&rdquo; He is right that too many of its members limit themselves to &ldquo;humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks,&rdquo; and too few are available for the combat missions the alliance as a whole has agreed to assume.<br /><br />Libya, a mission much more directly linked to the security of Europe than of the United States, strikingly illustrates the consequences.<br /><br />Fewer than half of NATO&rsquo;s 28 members are taking part in the military mission. Fewer than a third are participating in the all-important airstrikes. British and French aircraft carry the main burden. Canada, Belgium, Norway and Denmark, despite limited resources, have made outsized contributions. Turkey, with the alliance&rsquo;s second-largest military, has remained largely on the sidelines. Germany, NATO&rsquo;s biggest historic beneficiary, has done nothing at all.</p></div>
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<div id="9" name="9">
<p><b>Afghanistan: UN says May deadliest month for civilians</b></p>
<p>The UN says May was the deadliest month for civilians in Afghanistan since 2007, when the organisation started recording civilian casualties.</p>
<p>The UN said "anti-government elements" were responsible for 82% of the 368 "conflict-related civilian deaths".</p>
<p>"Pro-government forces", including Nato, caused 45 of the deaths.</p>
<p>The news came as several deadly insurgent attacks killed at least 18 people, most of them civilians, in the volatile south and east of the country.</p>
<p>Fifteen people, including eight children and four women, were killed when a bomb blast hit their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, the Interior Ministry said.</p>
<p>In the eastern province of Khost, a suicide bomber struck outside a police base, killing two policemen - including a commander - and a civilian, a police official said. Twelve people were wounded in the attack.</p>
<p>Air strikes controversy</p>
<p>The latest attacks came as the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan released its civilian casualty figures for last month.</p>
<p>"More civilians were killed in May than in any other month since 2007 when Unama began documenting civilian casualties," said Georgette Gagnon, Unama's director of human rights.</p>
<p>"We are very concerned that civilian suffering will increase even more over the summer fighting season which historically brings the highest numbers of civilian casualties," she said.</p>
<p>"Parties to the conflict must increase their efforts to protect civilians now."</p>
<p>The statistics reveal that insurgents were responsible for most of the casualties, but air strikes were blamed for 3% of the civilian deaths.</p>
<p>Nato's use of air strikes to target Taliban insurgents has angered President Hamid Karzai, who has demanded that they end.</p>
<p>But Nato commanders value the strikes as a useful weapon against an enemy that does not often choose to engage in open combat.</p>
<p>'Deadliest year'</p>
<p>Instead, roadside bombs - or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - remain one of the Taliban's weapons of choice, along with suicide bombers and hit-and-run attacks on Afghan and foreign security forces.</p>
<p>The IEDs are intended to hit Afghan or foreign forces but frequently kill and wound civilians.</p>
<p>IEDs "continued to kill and injure the most Afghan civilians in May taking 119 lives and causing 274 injuries," Unama said.</p>
<p>"The large majority of IEDs in Afghanistan are pressure-plate devices which are indiscriminate in nature... The widespread use by anti-government elements of these weapons is a violation of international humanitarian law," the report said.</p>
<p>The Taliban are also increasingly turning to infiltrators dressed as Afghan soldiers or police, or actual security personnel who have turned insurgent, to attack foreign troops.</p>
<p>The UN has already said that 2010 was the deadliest year for civilians since the Taliban were overthrown from power in late 2001 and the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai installed later.</p>
</div>
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<div id="10" name="10">
<p><b>Sarah Palin e-mails: First details emerge</b></p>
<p>Details are emerging of Sarah Palin's life as governor of Alaska, following the release of 24,000 pages of her e-mails by officials in the US state.</p>
<p>As well as the mundane matters of political office, the correspondence reveals her frustration over rumours about her family and marriage.</p>
<p>Alaska has released 24,199 printed pages of e-mails covering Mrs Palin's first 21 months as governor - from 2006 until she accepted the vice-presidential nomination.</p>
<p>Some of the correspondence is written in Mrs Palin's trademark folksy manner. The day after she was plucked from relative obscurity in 2008 for the presidential ticket of Republican nominee John McCain, she wrote to an associate: "Can you flippinbelieveit?!"</p>
<p>The e-mails reveal her irritation at the so-called Troopergate affair, when she was accused of pursuing a vendetta against her sister's ex-husband, an Alaska policeman.</p>
<p>The state of Alaska's investigation into Troopergate found that Mrs Palin had abused her power by dismissing an official who had refused to sack her former brother-in-law.</p>
<p>In another e-mail, Mrs Palin praises a speech on energy policy made by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, asking her aides to write a statement "saying he's right on".</p>
<p>Included in the e-mails:</p>
<ul>
<li>Her aide Joe Balash wrote the answers for her to read off a teleprompter in an interview on Alaska's energy policy with a Canadian TV channel. "You're all awesome", she wrote to her team</li>
<li>Her frustration with reporters' questions about whether or not she believed in dinosaurs and whether they co-existed with humans</li>
<li>Her attempts to link her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, with Bill Allen, an oil company chief executive found guilty of bribery, extortion and conspiracy. "I've asked Frank Bailey to help me track down soem [sic] evidence of past administration's dealing with Bill Allen," she wrote</li>
<li>A response in 2008 to a blog post alleging she had had an affair: "I feel like I'm at the breaking point with the hurtful gossip&hellip; I hate this part of the job and many days I feel like it's not worth it"</li>
<li>A demand in January 2008 to know who had leaked an e-mail, telling a colleague: "Hate to see you or anyone else being accused of purposefully setting me up with it being leaked, but that's what I'm hearing"</li>
<li>Her attempts in several e-mails to find the identity of someone who alleged that she had not buckled her son, Trig, properly into his car seat</li>
<li>Her frustration over state officials' access to a personal computer in her bedroom at the governor's mansion without her notice, in which she writes: "Who, when, etc conducted this search of my bedroom's computer and the other house computer?"</li>
<li>A request to aides to set up a meeting with John McCain's team, several months before he chose Mrs Palin as his running mate</li>
<li>An aide suggesting a meeting with Pete Rouse, then chief of staff "for a guy named Barack Obama". "I'm game to meet him," Palin replied.</li>
<li>Her attempt to install a tanning bed in the governor's mansion in Juneau</li>
</ul>
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<div id="11" name="11">
<h2>Turkey's Islamist-based AKP keeps majority in parliamentary election</h2>
<h3>Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, riding a wave of support from the pious poor and Muslim middle class, garners a majority of parliamentary seats, setting up a third term for Erdogan.</h3>
<p>By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times</p>
<p>June 13, 2011</p>
<p>Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey</p>
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<p>No pressing matter of state like the economy or foreign policy compelled Alayrettin Ayyaldiz to head to a polling station in his modest Istanbul neighborhood Sunday and cast his ballot for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party. It was a vote of faith and emotion.<br /> <br /> "We're totally connected with our hearts to the AKP," said the 38-year-old vegetable and fruit vendor, referring to the party's acronym. "It's not about what they do. It's because we love them. They're of us. They're of the people."<br /> <br /> The Islamist-rooted party, riding a wave of support from the pious poor and the newly emergent Muslim middle class, handily defeated its opponents to hold a majority of parliamentary seats, setting up a third term for Erdogan, who has been in office since 2003.<br /> <br /> However, it fell just short of the 330 seats required to push through constitutional changes that would probably include resolving the country's painful Kurdish problem by calling for a referendum rather than wrangling with parliament.<br /> <br /> "He needs to consult with as broad a coalition as possible to change the constitution," said Cengiz Aktar, a university professor and journalist. "And on the second-biggest challenge, the Kurdish issue, he also needs to consult. If he gets overconfident and makes his own constitution and his own Kurdish solution, they won't work."<br /> <br /> For his part, Erdogan struck a conciliatory tone in televised remarks. "The winner of the June 12 elections is our people, whether they voted for the AK Party or not," he told supporters. "Our nation assigned us to draft the new constitution. They gave us a message to build the new constitution through consensus and negotiation. We will discuss the new constitution with opposition parties, civil society groups and academics. We will seek the broadest consensus."<br /> <br /> Interest in the election was fervent; 81% of eligible voters cast ballots. With all of the votes counted, results showed the AKP with just over 50% of the vote and 326 seats in the 550-seat chamber. Its main rival, the center-left Republican People's Party, or CHP, won only 25% of the vote, good for 135 seats and better than its 2007 showing but low enough to prompt a leadership change within the organization, analysts say.<br /> <br /> The right-wing Nationalist Movement Party appeared to have broken through the 10% hurdle required to gain a block of seats in parliament, with about 13% of the vote and 53 seats, despite a series of sex scandals. Independent candidates mostly representing the country's Kurdish minority appeared set to win about 36 seats.</p>
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<div id="12" name="12">
<h1>Argentina Democratizes Media Law</h1>
<p>Deep Dish TV&rsquo;s blog <a href="http://deepdishwavesofchange.blogspot.com/">Waves of Change</a>, an on-going multi-part report on community grassroots media around the world, has been closely following the remarkable recent victory of grassroots media groups in Argentina.</p>
<p>Civil society and alternative media groups in Argentina have something to celebrate. On September 19, 2009 the Argentine Senate passed a new media bill that replaces the law declared by the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed the law the same day.</p>
<p>Perez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for his efforts in defense of human rights during the military regime pointed out &ldquo;social organizations have been working for a democratic media law for the past 25 years. In fact, this bill was based on a proposal written by a coalition of Argentine community media, human rights groups, unions and progressive academics.</p>
<p>The new law curbs the concentration of media ownership by limiting the number of broadcasting licenses in the hands of giant mainstream, media conglomerates and encourages alternative media groups. It describes communication as a &ldquo;public service&rdquo; and aims to diversify the airwaves by allocating one-third of licenses each for non-profit organizations, state broadcasters and private companies.</p>
<p>In addition, it stipulates that at least 70 percent of radio content and 60 percent of television programming must be produced in Argentina, while requiring that cable TV stations carry channels run by trade unions, universities, indigenous groups and other social organizations.</p>
<p>Under the law the country&rsquo;s largest media company, Grupo Clarin, which owns more than 250 newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and cable stations will be forced to sell off many of its properties.</p>
<p>Grupo Clarin and other media giants continue their bitter opposition to the law and are threatening a wave of lawsuits, claiming the new limits violate constitutional property protections. Lawmakers opposed to the bill pledged to revise it in the next session of the Argentine Congress, where they may have a majority after President Fernandez de Kirchner&rsquo;s party lost seats in the June election.</p>
<p>United Nations Special Reporter for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank La Rue said the new law set &ldquo;an example for other countries&rdquo; by guaranteeing access to the media by all segments of society. He added that the new law represents &ldquo;a stride forward in Latin America against the increasing concentration of media ownership&rdquo;</p>
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<div id="13" name="13">
<h1>Basketball Fan&nbsp;Again&hellip;</h1>
<p>I&rsquo;ve been a huge fan of both Lebron and D-Wade ever since they came into the league, but ever since KG gave up on the Timberwolves I haven&rsquo;t paid much attention to the NBA. &nbsp;Here&rsquo;s hoping that <a href="http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/122994133.html" target="_blank">Rubio</a> comes in and helps make the Wolves contenders again. &nbsp;Rubio, Beasley and Love, theres a triple threat that I can really get behind&hellip;</p>
<p>Since I&rsquo;ve moved here a team that I liked but didn&rsquo;t love has made me a NBA fan again. &nbsp;This series has been exciting, and the same goes for the Eastern Conference Finals. &nbsp;Last night&rsquo;s game was one of the best games I have ever watched.</p>
<p>I want down to the Drexler again. &nbsp;That was where I watched the first game of the series, and I really think I found my home away from home. &nbsp;The bar staff is still awesome, the bartender even bought me a couple Jack and Diets. &nbsp;The atmosphere was just awesome everyone there was having a great time high-fiving cheering and whatnot, and of course giving the Puerto Rican girls who were in love with Barea a hard time. &nbsp;All in all it was a blast and I think I will be going there to watch game 4 on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The Dave Hyde at the Sun-Sentinel did a great job with a post on the <a href="http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports/columnists/hyde/blog/2011/06/hyde5_five_things_we_learned_i_8.html">Five Things We Learned in Heat&rsquo;s Game Three Win</a>.</p>
<p>The first thing that Hyde points out was that the &ldquo;refereeing was, um, interesting.&rdquo; &nbsp;It&rsquo;s fun to joke about the Heat being a bunch of cry babies, but the Heat received 27 fouls compared to the Mav&rsquo;s 14. &nbsp;That is especially nuts considering the Heat are a drive to the basket team and the Mav&rsquo;s are a jumpshooting team.</p>
<p>The second thing that Hyde mentioned was that Dallas has no answer for Dwayne Wade. &nbsp;I definitely agree with this. &nbsp;Wade has been lights out and to me this is why the Heat is still Wade&rsquo;s team.</p>
<p>Hyde also mentioned the way that Chalmers has been taking advantage of the space he is being given. &nbsp;I loved this shot&hellip;</p>
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<div id="14" name="14">
<h1>Another leftist President wins the election in South&nbsp;America</h1>
<p>The Ecuadorian news paper&nbsp;<a href="http://bit.ly/kq7JKJ">El Universo</a>&nbsp;posted as its first page the victory of Ollanta Humala against Keiko Fujimori in the presidential elections of Peru. According to the news paper El Universo the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), computational entity, reported that 87% of records counted, Humala obtained 51.2% of valid votes, while Fujimori managed to 48.81%. Additionally to these results Humala&nbsp; declared himself as a winner of the presidential elections and promised to spearhead a government consultation, consolidate national economic growth of the country, and promotes social inclusion.</p>
<p>Another news paper&nbsp;<a href="http://bit.ly/meaSa1">El Comercio</a>&nbsp;published the private sector opinion about these elections results. In fact the President of the private institutions in Peru Humberto Speziani expressed that the Group of Private Institutions Confiep has the &ldquo;open door&rdquo; to work together towards that goal, we have to reassure markets and domestic and foreign investors, must maintain macroeconomic and reassure lines, otherwise the whole country will suffer, &rdquo; said Speziani.</p>
<p>On the other hand, another important person expressed his support to Humala. The Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 Mario Vargas Llosa. According to the news paper <a href="http://bit.ly/l2k1Sz">El Diario</a>&nbsp;mentioned that &ldquo;Ollanta Humala has to understand that this victory gave the middle classes. The middle classes are those that have turned in the second round to trust him, to believe that model has moved away from Chavez&rsquo;s absolutely catastrophic and that the defeat of Keiko Fujimori has freed Peru of a dictatorship which was terribly corrupt and bloody again take power.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Would this election reinforce the unification of South America?</p>
<p>Would this election destabilize&nbsp; the region?</p>
<p>Would this election benefit the international private investment in Peru ?</p>
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<div id="15" name="15">
<h1><a href="http://blog.aksw.org/2011/aksw-adventures-to-sachsische-schweiz/" title="Permanent Link to AKSW adventures to S&auml;chsische Schweiz !!">AKSW adventures to S&auml;chsische Schweiz !!</a></h1>
<p>On the 3rd of April 2011, a beautiful sunny day in Saxony, the AKSW members decided to visit the beautiful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4chsische_Schweiz" title="S&auml;chsische Schweiz">S&auml;chsische Schweiz</a> along with their respective children and spouses ! In all, we were 14 adults plus 7 kids, out of which 3 were in prams (Strollers or Kinderwagons).&nbsp;We decided to explore the peak &ldquo;Rauensteine&rdquo;, which (from reviews) seemed to be the best option for us since it was &lsquo;recommended&rsquo; to be a suitable trek for children ! Besides, it was only 6km long and offered multiple spots where we could catch a panoramic view of the breathtaking scenery around us.</p>
<p>At 7:30am, a few of us gathered at the Leipzig Hbf and bought the Sachsen-Ticket, which is reasonably priced and allows five people to travel in one ticket by the Regional Express. A few others joined at Engelsdorf, while the rest joined us directly at Dresden Hbf. From Dresden Hbf, we hurried to catch our next train, the S-Bahn, which would take us to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadt_Wehlen" title="Stadt Wehlen">Stadt Wehlen</a>, where we would start treking from.&nbsp;At 10:31, our train reached Stadt Wehlen and thats where the adventure began!</p>
<p>The beginning of the route was a steep and rocky surface which made it difficult for the prams to be dragged along. However, we slowly made our way up while the kids in the pram enjoyed the &ldquo;bumpy&rdquo; ride. The sunny weather did add to the adventure but it was more than welcome after a very cold winter.&nbsp;Within an hour we reached our first picnic spot &ndash; a rocky plateau in front of the first staircase. We were rewarded for our hard-work by a beautiful view of not only the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=50.9622222222,14.0713888889&amp;spn=0.1,0.1&amp;q=50.9622222222,14.0713888889%20%28Bastei%29&amp;t=h" title="Bastei">Bastei</a> on one side but also the fortress K&ouml;nigstein on the other. Everyone rested for a while, shared some snacks and some of us even lay down in the shade for a bit.</p>
<p>And we sure did need that bit of rest because the next part of our trek was even more challenging ! We not only had to make ourselves through the most narrowest of crevices and wobbly staircases, but also had to carry the prams along, which therefore had to be actually picked up rather than being dragged along. Since it was wise not to keep the babies in the pram, two of the babies, Nika and Sophia, found themselves sitting on the shoulders of one of their parent while the youngest, Mathilda, was strapped up with her mother. Two of the prams were even dismantled so that it would be easier to carried by one person.</p>
<p>Slowly but steadily the parents, the children, the prams (carried by two people) and the rest of us made ourselves up and down the dangerously constructed staircases, the small pathways through two boulders of rocks and sometimes along man-made bridges to pass along, what would be a very high fall !&nbsp;</p>
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<div id="16" name="16">
<h1>Obama holds big 2012 lead over Republicans</h1>
<p>Wed, Jun 8 2011</p>
<p>By <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&amp;n=john.whitesides&amp;">John Whitesides</a></p>
<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama retains a big lead over possible Republican rivals in the 2012 election despite anxiety about the economy and the country's future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Obama's approval rating inched up 1 percentage point from May to 50 percent but the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track also rose as pricier gasoline, persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market chipped away at public confidence.</p>
<p>Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins, the poll showed. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points -- 51 percent to 38 percent.</p>
<p>Sarah Palin and Romney lead the Republicans battling for the right to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election.</p>
<p>Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, had the support of 22 percent of the Republicans surveyed. The former governor of Alaska has not said whether she will run for president next year.</p>
<p>Romney, who failed in a 2008 presidential bid, had 20 percent support.</p>
<p>Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas, and former pizza executive Herman Cain were tied for third with 7 percent each.</p>
<p>REPUBLICAN RACE STILL FORMING</p>
<p>The Republican candidates are just starting to engage in their slow-starting nomination race. Young said Palin and Romney had a clear advantage at this stage over other challengers in name recognition among voters.</p>
<p>Other surveys have shown Romney in a stronger position. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this week gave Romney a slight lead over Obama among registered voters.</p>
<p>In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney's 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points.</p>
<p>The survey was taken after weak jobs and housing figures released last week showed the U.S. economy is recovering slower than expected. Unemployment rose slightly to 9.1 percent for the month.</p>
<p>The poll found 60 percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track, up from 56 percent in May but still below April's high of 69 percent. In the latest survey, 35 percent said the country is going in the right direction.</p>
<p>Obama's approval rating has drifted in a narrow range between 49 percent and 51 percent since January, with the exception of April when the first spike in gasoline prices drove his rating lower.</p>
<p>With Congress battling over a Republican budget plan that includes scaling back the federal Medicare health program for the elderly, the poll found a plurality of Americans, 43 percent, oppose the Medicare cuts and 37 percent support them.</p>
<p>The poll, conducted Friday through Monday, surveyed 1,132 adults nationwide by telephone, including 948 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.</p>
<p>(Editing by <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&amp;n=john.ocallaghan&amp;">John O'Callaghan</a>)</p>
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<div id="17" name="17">
<p>Hi Lito and all the regulars</p>
<p>This is my last post. I just wanted to say thanks for being such great students and asking such interesting questions.</p>
<p>Lito, I'm so pleased you published those fish recipes with the <b>mouth-watering</b> pictures. I don't think I have ever tried Filipino food, but I'm going to seek out a Filipino restaurant in London now.</p>
<p>You've been a really fantastic blogger. It's not easy to write in another language but you have given us an idea of the sights, sounds and tastes of your country. You have also made us all feel very lazy because you get up so early every morning!</p>
<p>Thanks also to everyone who has commented below. We seem to have lots of film fans on this blog!</p>
<p>Mohammad, I was interested in what you wrote about how rare dancing and singing scenes are in Hollywood nowadays. Of course you are right that Bollywood films are really different from Hollywood films, but I wonder if the situation is changing. I know that recently there have been some Indian films that have <b>tackled </b>some quite serious themes. Meanwhile, in Europe and America musicals have come back into fashion partly because of a very popular American TV show called Glee. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years we see a lot more Hollywood musicals than we are used to.</p>
<p>I can remember the first time I saw a Bollywood movie. I grew up in a town with a great many people from the Indian subcontinent. For this reason my local cinema showed Indian <b>flicks </b>every Sunday. One day I went along to watch a film - I forget which one. I realised that I was the only non-Indian person in the whole <b>auditorium</b>. The film started, the hero was 'introduced' to <b>applause </b>from the people in the cinema... and I realised there were no <b>subtitles</b>! But guess what? It didn't matter. It was easy to follow the story.</p>
<p>From next week, my colleague Neil will be the teacher blogger. Be gentle with him.</p>
<p>ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK'S QUIZ</p>
<p>1. Cinema is sometimes called the WHAT screen? a) bronze b) silver c) golden</p>
<p>The silver screen.</p>
<p>2. Which country has the world's biggest filmmaking industry? a) USA b) Nigeria c) India</p>
<p>Tricky one. More films come out of India than anywhere else so in that sense it is the biggest industry (but I'm not sure which country makes the most money from films!)</p>
<p>3. What is the missing word? "Lights, camera, _______!" a) action b) cut c) act</p>
<p>"Lights, Camera, Action!" This is what the director says when he wants people to start acting.</p>
<p>4. In what country was Catherine Zeta-Jones born?</p>
<p>Wales.</p>
<p>5. Where did Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn go on holiday in 1953?</p>
<p>The answer is indeed Rome. If you haven't seen 'Roman Holiday' then I <b>heartily </b>recommend it. Beatriz, I think there were as many women who fell in love with Gregory Peck in 1953 as there were men who fell in love with Audrey Hepburn.</p>
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<div id="18" name="18">
<h2><a href="http://zove.info/india-travel-experience-world-class-tour-packages-india" title="Permanent Link to India Travel: Experience World-class Tour Packages India">India Travel: Experience World-class Tour Packages India</a></h2>
<p>A outing to India brings opposite ride packages India that covers north India tour, India enlightenment tour, journey tour, wildlife tour, golden triangle tour, south India tour as well as most alternative sorts of India tours that creates your holidays in India a noted a single to delight forever. We takes we to Kerala tours where we will find backwaters, abounding wildlife, paddy fields, a abounding land ripping with cashew, coconut as well as rubber plantations as well as a accumulation of artificial flavouring similar to Cardamom, pepper, turmeric, as well as ginger, creation Kerala a piquancy collateral of India that is important for perplexing rosewood as well as sandalwood carvings, ivory work, coronet as well as &ldquo;bell metal&rdquo; lamps. After Kerala India tour packages takes we to Rajasthan that is important for shining Kodachrome hues: Multi- colored clothes, trinket that starts from a toes as well as anklets as well as mounts upwards from waist to hands to face as well as forehead. Rajasthan is a land of vital colour where women have been find with moving skirts as well as lights as zephyr mantles as well as armfuls of bangles as well as opposite sorts of jewellery. After Rajasthan debate we takes we to Cultural Tour where we knowledge opposite sorts of enlightenment as well as traditions of Indian people. This is usually indicate where we approximate we with India people living, enlightenment with opposite religion. After Cultural birthright debate underneath India tours takes we to golden triangle debate India where we get possibility to see Agra as well as Jaipur attractions together with Rishikesh as well as Haridwar. It additionally embody debate to golden church &ndash; Harminder Sahib. They additionally supplement special activities as well as debate in golden triangle debate equates to tiger tour, debate to Udaipur, Indian meals in progress classes as well as odyssey of forts &amp; palaces, Pushkar as well as Mandawa debate where we knowledge a little universe well known tourists attractions in India. Here during atriptoindia.com provides opposite sorts of ride comforts tourists can opt as per their bill similar to air travel, train, automobile etc. India is a pick up of series of tourists sightseeing, chronological sites as well as stately cities, golden beaches, cloudy towering retreats, abounding cultures as well as festivities. Tour to India is itself a wish if blended with traveller beam a outing in India. Trip to India is an well-developed for tourists since it is a wonderland knowledge to revisit universe important destinations, sightseeings, tourists places that have regularly been a budding ride end for those who have been bewitched by the outlandish south India tours &amp; India legal holiday trips.</p>
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<div id="19" name="19">
<h1>BBC Sport at Social Media Week</h1>
<p><a href="http://socialmediaweek.org/">Social Media Week</a>, an annual event which takes place in nine global cities, took place this week, and the BBC took part in several sessions during the London leg.</p>
<p>BBC Sport played its part on Wednesday 9 February. There was a two-hour session in London, the first hour of which discussed sport and social media, with the second hour focusing in on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2012/">London 2012 Olympics and the part social media will play in the BBC's coverage</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/tms/default.stm">Test Match Special</a> producer <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adammountford/">Adam Mountford</a> opened the batting (that was his line, by the way!) in the first hour, discussing the way the TMS team used social media during the recent <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/9347430.stm">Ashes series in Australia</a>. <a href="http://www.rfu.com/">The Rugby Football Union</a> was next up, followed by the first social media London derby as Arsenal and Chelsea new media leads battled it out for the approval of an industry audience.</p>
<p>In the second hour, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rogermosey/">BBC's Director of 2012, Roger Mosey</a>, was kind enough to chair a session which featured <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumphrey/">BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey</a>, former world swimming champion and current BBC 5 Live pundit Karen Pickering, Beijing Olympics 100m finalist and 2012 hopeful Jeanette Kwakye and myself as BBC Sport website editor and social media lead.</p>
<p>It was very well-received by those in the audience and <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/search/smwldn_sport">watching online</a>. The hashtag #smwldn_sport trended in the London area on the night and there was lots of discussion about the event on Twitter.</p>
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<div id="20" name="20">
<p>The State of Alaska has released 24,000 of former Governor Sarah Palin emails to the public yesterday. This caused a Media frenzy, as the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News to appeal to the public for help in sifting through them. The emails cover a 21-month period from 2007 to 2009. So far, about the only controversial email found concerns a tanning bed at the governor&prime;s mansion in Juneau and her thoughts about being selected to run with John McCain for the White House. The Anchorage Daily News and other sources have also found that Palin has received many death threats after becoming the 2008 Vice Presidential candidate.</p>
<p>The media frenzy in attempts to find more dirt on Sarah Palin is perhaps a new low for the state of journalism in the United States. Never before have so many sought to find so much wrong with one person. The modern day witch hunt goes beyond the pale of responsible, ethical journalism, and unmasks their true agenda.</p>
<p>A few interesting pieces of information have been learned from the emails. They verify the hard work Palin did to break a 30-year deadlock on plans to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Lower-48 with her pluck and political savvy. We also learn that as early as April of 2008, many supporters of Palin began encouraging her to run with John McCain. That in June, several news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, saw her as a potential VP running mate with McCain.</p>
<p>Most of the 24,000 Sarah Palin emails released by the State of Alaska demonstrate her hard work as governor and the wide spread popularity she enjoyed. But the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News continue to go negative, seeking anything, even the smallest, most obscure reason to cast doubt on any possible run for the White House against Barack Obama in 2012. The emails tend to reinforce the wisdom by John McCain in selecting Palin to be his vice presidential running mate in 2008.</p>
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<div id="21" name="21">
<p><b>Genetics 2010: Something missing in genomics?</b></p>
<p>The first set of talks at the MOHB in Boston yesterday evening was on personal genomics. Speakers including the Broad Institute&rsquo;s David Altshuler and Leonid Kruglyak of Princeton vigorously defended the reputation of genome wide association studies (GWAS), which have come under some attack in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/health/research/13genome.html?ref=science"><i>New York Times</i></a> and other media outlets, recently. GWAS compare genomic markers in hundreds to thousands of individuals in order to find areas of the genome that associate with risk for common traits and diseases. They&rsquo;ve produced hundreds of associations, but frustratingly for some, the genetic regions that have been fingered account for only a small percentage of the inherited risk for disease. <i>Nature </i>weighed in on this &lsquo;missing heritability&rsquo; concept in the past (see <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081105/full/456018a.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/nature08494.html">here</a>). <br /> Altshuler takes umbrage with some, such as Mary Claire King at the University of Washington who have posited that very <a href="http://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2810%2900320-X">rare variants</a> &ndash; unlikely to be found by GWAS &ndash; are where much of the heritability is hiding. Altshuler says he thinks that with projects like the 1,000 genomes project (which now plans to sequence upwards of 2,500 human genomes to various degrees of completion) a lot more human variation will be found and will begin to fill in more of the gaps in heritability. As costs of sequencing come down, he says, &ldquo;We won&rsquo;t have these debates about rare versus common variants.&rdquo;<br /> Capturing a real sense of human diversity in genomes will be important says Carlos Bustamante, now at Stanford University, and that should be done by sequencing more humans from diverse backgrounds (rather than just European backgrounds which have dominated the sequencer queues to date). His talk presented some new work looking closely at the sequence of an African American woman and a Mexican individual. Both individuals have a genome that is admixed, that is it contains a jumble of genetic elements from European and African origin in the case of the African American and Native American and European. Using computational tools, Bustamante&rsquo;s group was able to deconvolute the ancestry of the genome in an easy to see way showing where stretches of DNA on the individuals&rsquo; genomes became mixed. The longer the stretches go without interruption, the more recent the admixture, says Bustamante, and they were roughly able to calculate the point at which cultures came together &ndash; lining up roughly with the Spanish exploration of the Americas (1470-1570) for the Mexican individual and the heyday of the middle passage (1690-1750) for the African American.</p>
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<div id="22" name="22">
<p><strong>Germany</strong></p>
<p>Germany officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced&nbsp; ( listen)), is a country in Western and Central Europe. Germany is a federal parliamentary republic of sixteen states. The capital and largest city is Berlin. It covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy of the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.<br /> <br /> A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations. The different German states became first unified in 1871, with the inception of the German Empire. After the German revolution and the subsequent military surrender in World War 1, the Weimar Republic was proclaimed in 1918, followed by the Third Reich in 1933. The latter period was marked by a dictatorship, genocide and the initiation of World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.<br /> <br /> Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area and since 1999 a member of the eurozone. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe, and took a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2011&ndash;2012 term.<br /> <br /> It has the world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth largest by purchasing power parity. It is the second largest exporter and third largest importer of goods. In absolute terms, Germany spends the third biggest annual development aid budget in the world, while its military expenditure ranks seventh. The country has developed a very high standard of living and a comprehensive system of social security. Germany has been the home of many influential scientists and inventors, and is known for its cultural and political history.</p>
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<div id="23" name="23">
<p><strong>Barcelona</strong></p>
<p>Futbol Club Barcelona (also known as Barcelona and familiarly as Bar&ccedil;a) is a Spanish professional football club, based in Barcelona, Spain. They play in La Liga, and is one of the only three clubs to have never been relegated, along with Athletic Bilbao and rival Real Madrid. They are the current Spanish and European football champions.<br /> <br /> Founded as Foot-Ball Club Barcelona in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Spanish footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto "M&eacute;s que un club" (English: More than a club). The official Bar&ccedil;a anthem is the "Cant del Bar&ccedil;a" written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espin&agrave;s. Unlike many other football clubs, the supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the world's second richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turn-over of &euro;398 million. The club holds a long-standing rivalry with Real Madrid, and matches between the two teams are referred to as "El Cl&aacute;sico".<br /> <br /> FC Barcelona is the second most successful club in Spanish football in terms of overall trophies, having won 21 La Liga titles, a record 25 Spanish Cups, nine Spanish Super Cups and two League Cups. It is also one of most successful clubs in European football, having won 11 UEFA competitions.[2] It is the only European club to have played continental football every season since 1955. In 2009, Barcelona became the first club in Spain to win the treble consisting of La Liga, Copa del Rey, and the Champions League. That same year, it also became the first football club ever to win six out of six competitions in a single year, thus completing the sextuple, comprising the aforementioned treble and the Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.</p>
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<p><strong>Lionel Messi</strong></p>
<p>Lionel Andr&eacute;s "Leo" Messi[3] (Spanish pronunciation: [ljo'nel an'd?es 'mesi]; born 24 June 1987 in Rosario) is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team as a forward or winger. Considered one of the best football players of his generation,[4][5][6] Messi received several Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21, and won in 2009[7][8][9][10] and 2010.[11] His playing style and ability have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his "successor".[12][13]<br /> <br /> Messi began playing football at a young age and his potential was quickly identified by Barcelona. He left Rosario-based Newell's Old Boys's youth team in 2000 and moved with his family to Europe, as Barcelona offered treatment for his growth hormone deficiency. Making his debut in the 2004&ndash;05 season, he broke his team record for the youngest footballer to score a league goal. Major honours soon followed as Barcelona won La Liga in Messi's debut season, and won a double of the league and Champions League in 2006. His breakthrough season was in the 2006&ndash;07 season; he became a first team regular, scoring a hat-trick in El Cl&aacute;sico and finishing with 14 goals in 26 league games. Messi then had the most successful season of his playing career, the 2008&ndash;09 season, in which he scored 38 goals to play an integral part in a treble-winning campaign. This record breaking season was then eclipsed in the following 2009&ndash;10 campaign, where Messi scored 47 goals in all competitions, equalling Ronaldo's record total for Barcelona. He surpassed this record in the 2010&ndash;11 season with 53 goals in all competitions.<br /> <br /> Messi has won five La Liga titles, three Champions League titles, scoring in two of those finals, against Manchester United in both 2009 and 2011. He was not on the pitch as Barcelona defeated Arsenal in 2006, but received a winners' medal from the tournament. After scoring 12 goals in the 2010-11 Champions League, Messi becomes the third player after Gerd M&uuml;ller and Jean-Pierre Papin to top-score in three successive European Champion Clubs' Cup campaigns. However, Messi is the first one to win the Champions League top scorer titles for three consecutive years after Champions League changed its format in 1992.[14]<br /> <br /> Messi was the top scorer of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship with six goals, including two in the final game. Shortly thereafter, he became an established member of Argentina's senior international team. In 2006, he became the youngest Argentine to play in the FIFA World Cup and he won a runners-up medal at the Copa Am&eacute;rica tournament the following year. In 2008, in Beijing, he won his first international honour, an Olympic gold medal, with the Argentina Olympic football team.</p>
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<div id="25" name="25">
<p><strong>OPEC</strong></p>
<p>OPEC (play /'o?p?k/ oh-pek; Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965,[2] and hosts regular meetings among the oil ministers of its Member Countries. Indonesia withdrew in 2008 after it became a net importer of oil, but stated it would likely return if it became a net exporter again.[3]<br /> <br /> According to its statutes, one of the principal goals is the determination of the best means for safeguarding the organization's interests, individually and collectively. It also pursues ways and means of ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations; giving due regard at all times to the interests of the producing nations and to the necessity of securing a steady income to the producing countries; an efficient and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations, and a fair return on their capital to those investing in the petroleum industry.[4]<br /> <br /> OPEC's influence on the market has been widely criticized, since it became effective in determining production and prices. Arab members of OPEC alarmed the developed world when they used the &ldquo;oil weapon&rdquo; during the Yom Kippur War by implementing oil embargoes and initiating the 1973 oil crisis. Although largely political explanations for the timing and extent of the OPEC price increases are also valid, from OPEC&rsquo;s point of view[citation needed], these changes were triggered largely by previous unilateral changes in the world financial system and the ensuing period of high inflation in both the developed and developing world. This explanation encompasses OPEC actions both before and after the outbreak of hostilities in October 1973, and concludes that &ldquo;OPEC countries were only 'staying even' by dramatically raising the dollar price of oil.&rdquo;[5]<br /> <br /> OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has diminished somewhat since then, due to the subsequent discovery and development of large oil reserves in Alaska, the North Sea, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, the opening up of Russia, and market modernization. As of November 2010, OPEC members collectively hold 79% of world crude oil reserves and 44% of the world&rsquo;s crude oil production, affording them considerable control over the global market.[6] The next largest group of producers, members of the OECD and the Post-Soviet states produced only 23.8% and 14.8%, respectively, of the world's total oil production.[7] As early as 2003, concerns that OPEC members had little excess pumping capacity sparked speculation that their influence on crude oil prices would begin to slip.</p>
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<div id="26" name="26">
<p><strong>Tree of life</strong><br /> <br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The tree of life in science describes the relationships of all life on Earth in an evolutionary context.[14] Charles Darwin talks about envisioning evolution and ecosystems as a "tangled bank" in On the Origin of Species; however, the book's sole illustration is of a branched diagram that is very tree-like. The evolutionary relationships of the tree of life were refined using genetic data by the great American microbiologist Carl Woese, the discoverer of the domain Archaea and a pioneer in molecular (genetic) methods in evolutionary biology.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Tree of Life on the Web is an ongoing Internet project containing information about phylogeny and biodiversity, produced by biologists from around the world. Each page contains information about one group of organisms and is organized according to a branched tree-like form, thus showing hypothetical relationships between organisms and groups of organisms.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The phrase the tree of life is often used in association with the DNA molecule, and has sometimes been associated with the maternal placenta.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The neuroanatomical term tree of life describes the branching pattern between the cortical grey matter and subcortical white matter of the cerebellum.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the world's rain forests, trees' leaves and branches form a canopy, which traps moisture and protects the diverse ecology underneath from the equatorial Sun. The phrase trees of life is used to describe this protective barrier, as, in its absence, life quickly abandons the area, due to extinction or migration.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In February 2009, BBC One broadcast an animated, interactive tree of life as part of its "Darwin Season." The program was narrated by Sir David Attenborough.<br /> <br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Software Engineers will recognize the "tree of life" as a "source code tree" where the "source code" is the genetic heriditary material (e.g., genes). The common concept of "tree" as a branched acyclic graph is the relevent concept.<br /> <br /> Every single organism (alive or extinct) has an ancestral path back to the ancestral replicator. The (mostly useful, aka adaptive at a certain time and place) accumulation of copying errors along that path constitutes an individual's (and species') evolutionary history. In a software tree, the modifications are typically deliberate and intentional, instead of random and filtered by the environment as seen in natural (or artificial) selection.</p>
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<div id="27" name="27">
<p><b>Mir-Hossein Mousavi</b></p>
<p>Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh (born 29 September 1941) is an Iranian reformist politician, painter and architect who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Mousavi is currently the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts and was a candidate for the 2009 presidential election.</p>
<p>He was the last Prime Minister in Iran before the 1989 constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister. Before that, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is also a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and the High Council of Cultural Revolution. However, as of 2009, he has not participated in their meetings, which is interpreted by political analysts and commentators as a sign of his disapproval. In the early years of the revolution, Mousavi was the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Islamic Republic Party, the Jomhouri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper. In 2009 presidential election, Mousavi chose green as his campaign color, which has since became pervasive in Iran.</p>
<p>Mir-Hossein Mousavi was born on 29 September 1941 in Khameneh, East Azarbaijan, Iran. His father Mir-Esmail, was a tea merchant from Tabriz. Musavi grew up in Khameneh and following his graduation from high school in 1958, moved to Tehran.</p>
<p>As a young man in the early sixties, he had a close relationship with the Freedom Movement of Iran. The Freedom Movement of Iran was founded by Mehdi Bazargan, Yadolah Sahabi, and Mahmoud Taleghani. Mousavi was among the student activists who regularly attended Ali Shariati's lectures in Hosseiniyeh Ershad of Tehran.</p>
<p>He earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran (now Shahid Beheshti University), and in 1969 his master's degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran, focusing primarily on traditional Iranian architecture. While a student, he was an active member of the leftist Islamic association of students.</p>
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<div id="28" name="28">
<p><b><i>Avatar</i></b><b> (2009 film)</b></p>
<p>Avatar is a 2009 American[6][7] epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system.[8][9][10] The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi&mdash;a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered Na'vi-human hybrid bodies used by a team of researchers to interact with the natives of Pandora.[11]<br /> <br /> Development on Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film.[12] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999,[13] but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film.[14] Work on the language for the film's extraterrestrial beings began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006.[15][16] Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million.[3] Other estimates put the cost between $280 million and $310 million for production and at $150 million for promotion.[17][18][19] The film was released for traditional viewing, 3-D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and "4-D" viewing.[20] The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic technology.[21]<br /> <br /> Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was internationally released on December 16 and in the United States and Canada on December 18, to critical acclaim[22][23] and commercial success.[24][25][26] The film broke several box office records during its release and became the highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada[27] and also worldwide, surpassing Titanic, which had held the records for the previous twelve years.[28] It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion.[29] Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director,[30] and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction. The film's home release went on to break opening sales records and became the top-selling Blu-ray of all time. Following the film's success, Cameron signed with 20th Century Fox to produce two sequels, making Avatar the first of a planned trilogy.[31]</p>
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<div id="29" name="29">
<p><b>WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Files on All Guant&aacute;namo Prisoners</b></p>
<p>In its latest release of classified US documents, WikiLeaks is shining the light of truth on a notorious icon of the Bush administration&rsquo;s "War on Terror" &mdash; the prison at Guant&aacute;namo Bay, Cuba, which opened on January 11, 2002, and remains open under President Obama, despite his promise to close the much-criticized facility within a year of taking office.</p>
<p>In thousands of pages of documents dating from 2002 to 2008 and never seen before by members of the public or the media, the cases of the majority of the prisoners held at Guant&aacute;namo &mdash; 765 out of 779 in total &mdash; are described in detail in memoranda from JTF-GTMO, the Joint Task Force at Guant&aacute;namo Bay, to US Southern Command in Miami, Florida.</p>
<p>These memoranda, known as Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs), contain JTF-GTMO&rsquo;s recommendations about whether the prisoners in question should continue to be held, or should be released (transferred to their home governments, or to other governments). They consist of a wealth of important and previously undisclosed information, including health assessments, for example, and, in the cases of the majority of the 172 prisoners who are still held, photos (mostly for the first time ever).</p>
<p>They also include information on the first 201 prisoners released from the prison, between 2002 and 2004, which, unlike information on the rest of the prisoners (<a href="http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index.html">summaries of evidence and tribunal transcripts</a>, released as the result of a lawsuit filed by media groups in 2006), has never been made public before. Most of these documents reveal accounts of incompetence familiar to those who have studied Guant&aacute;namo closely, with innocent men detained by mistake (or because the US was offering substantial bounties to its allies for al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects), and numerous insignificant Taliban conscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan.</p>
<p>Beyond these previously unknown cases, the documents also reveal stories of the 399 other prisoners released from September 2004 to the present day, and of the seven men who have died at the prison.</p>
<p>The memos are signed by the commander of Guant&aacute;namo at the time, and describe whether the prisoners in question are regarded as low, medium or high risk. Although they were obviously not conclusive in and of themselves, as final decisions about the disposition of prisoners were taken at a higher level, they represent not only the opinions of JTF-GTMO, but also the Criminal Investigation Task Force , created by the Department of Defense to conduct interrogations in the "War on Terror," and the BSCTs, the behavioral science teams consisting of psychologists who had a major say in the "exploitation" of prisoners in interrogation.</p>
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<p><b>Majid Majidi</b></p>
<p>Born in an Iranian middle class family, he grew up in Tehran and at the age of 14 he started acting in amateur theater groups. He then studied at the Institute of Dramatic Arts in Tehran.<br /> <br /> After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, his interest in cinema brought him to act in various films, most notably Mohsen Makhmalbaf 's Boycott in 1985.<br /> <br /> In 1998, Majidi directed the film Children of Heaven, which was nominated to receive the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Though it lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni, Children of Heaven remains the only Iranian film to have been nominated by the Academy.<br /> <br /> Majidi has directed several other feature films since Children of Heaven: The Color of Paradise in 2000, Baran in 2001, and The Willow Tree in 2005; alternate English title One Life More). He also recently directed a feature-length documentary titled Barefoot to Herat which chronicles life in refugee camps and the city of Herat during and after the anti-Taliban offensive of 2001.<br /> <br /> In 2008, Majidi's acclaimed film The Song of Sparrows was the opening film of the Visakhapatnam International Film Festival in India .[1]<br /> <br /> Majid Majidi was one of five international film directors invited by the Beijing government to create a documentary short film to introduce the city of Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics which was held in the Chinese capital; the project was titled "Vision Beijing".[2]<br /> <br /> Majidi is very conservative in terms of his religious and political viewpoints and his politics gained him the resources to make his films in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He pulled out of a Danish film festival in protest against the publication in Denmark of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.Majid Majidi said that he was withdrawing "to protest against insulting any religious belief or icon".[3] Majidi writes, "I believe in God and live with my beliefs in every single moment of my life. I would like to protest against insulting any religious belief and icon. For this reason, I would like to announce my withdrawal from your festival."</p>
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<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">September 11 attacks</h1>
<p>The September 11 attacks (often referred to, in combination with the attacks' side effects on that day, as September 11, September 11th or 9/11) were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.[2][3] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and thousands of those working in the buildings. Both towers collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C., to target either the Capitol Building or the White House. There were no survivors from any of the flights.<br /><br />Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks.[4] According to the New York State Health Department, as of June 2009, a total of 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, have died.[4] Among the 2,752 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority.[5] Another 184 people were killed in the attack on the Pentagon.[6] The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries.[7] In addition, there was at least one secondary death&mdash;one person was ruled by a medical examiner to have died from lung disease due to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.[8]<br /><br />Suspicion quickly fell on al-Qaeda. Its leader Osama bin Laden denied involvement, but in 2004 he finally claimed responsibility for the attacks.[1] The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda members, and by enacting the USA PATRIOT Act. It was not until May 2011 that bin Laden was found and killed. Many other countries also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Some American stock exchanges stayed closed for the rest of the week following the attack, and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The destruction of billions of dollars' worth of office space caused serious damage to the economy of Lower Manhattan.<br /><br />The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and the Pentagon Memorial was built adjacent to the building. The rebuilding process has started on the World Trade Center site. In 2006, a new office tower was completed on the site of 7 World Trade Center. The new One World Trade Center is currently under construction at the site and is expected to be completed in 2013. Three more towers were originally expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site. Ground was broken for the Flight 93 National Memorial on November 8, 2009, and the first phase of construction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.[9]</p>
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